The Bandit

by B. B. Reid

  I felt his hand on my thigh, but I didn’t care about it. I only cared for what came next. When his lips left mine to trail to my neck, I didn’t fight him. It took every bit of fortitude and dignity he hadn’t already seduced away not to beg for more. Finally, he took pity on me and lifted his lips from my throat. A groan followed when his gaze settled between my thighs.

  “You have a pretty pussy,” he praised. “Maybe even the prettiest I’ve ever seen.” Without warning, he slid his teasing finger deep, and I arched my back against the shocking pleasure of it. “You didn’t have to go hungry with a cunt like this.”

  “Please don’t say that word.”

  “What word?”

  “Cunt. I don’t like it.”

  “Why?” He looked genuinely interested in the answer just before he shed his shirt. My mouth fell open, and I could have sworn my tongue swelled. Maybe all the moisture seeped inside because my mouth was dry as hell.

  “It makes me feel dirty.”

  “But you are dirty.” He leaned down until his hard chest was flush against my needy breasts. “You’re our dirty, little girl.”

  “It’s crass.”

  He swiped a finger through the lips of my pussy. “Is crass the reason your cunt is so wet?”

  “Don’t.” He continued to caress me.

  “Don’t what? Touch your cunt?” He leaned closer until his lips brushed mine. “Make it wetter?”

  “Stop it.”

  “No.” He stroked faster. My hips began to move of their own accord. “Such a greedy puss.” I couldn’t fight where my body was taking me. Effortlessly, he shoved me over the edge and watched me fall but not before pressing a finger inside me. The walls of my pussy gripped the digit as I fell down, down, down…

  I was paralyzed once I finally stopped falling. The violent tremors had ceased, and my moans had fallen silent. Only the sound of his throaty chuckle signaled that I was alive. He then kissed me on my forehead and smirked when his gaze met mine.

  “Sleep tight, kid.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Father knows best.

  ANGEL

  Three Years Ago

  “Where are you, Angeles? You should have been back a week ago.”

  “And why is that?” I questioned when I knew the reason for his call. Business was usually high this time of year with jobs that took him away for a long time.

  “You said you needed a break so I gave you one. Now it’s time to resume your duty.”

  “She’s sixteen fucking years old. Why does she still need a babysitter?”

  “Watch your fucking mouth,” he cursed back. “If you want to work for me, you take orders just like anyone else.”

  “Yeah? How many babysitting jobs did you do for granddad?”

  “Don’t question me, son. I earned my place just as you will. Get here.” The call disconnected, and I crushed my phone in my fist rather than chuck it across the room.

  Mian fucking Ross. That little girl has owned me since she was ten. Every day for six years, I kept her, protected her, and grew a little more obsessed with her each day. My father knew of my obsession with her but didn’t have the good judgment to keep her away from me. He preached control but seemed to do everything he could to try to make me lose it.

  Hours later, I walked into the quiet brownstone. For a moment, I wondered if anyone was even home until I heard the musical lilt of her laugh. I stopped when my dick stirred to life and swore.

  She’s sixteen.

  She’s fucking sixteen.

  The knowledge didn’t abate my hard dick, and as painful as the effort was, I kept moving until I found her.

  She was splashing around in the pool in the dick tease she called a swimsuit. She was hard to miss or ignore in the lime green and black two-piece.

  I swallowed a groan and scrubbed the palms of my hands over my eyes in a desperate attempt to erase the images of what I’d like to do to her from my mind.

  I was sick for wanting her the way I did.

  “I know that look in your eyes, son.” I never even heard my father approach. “I haven’t stopped looking at your mother that way since the day I met her.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Mian.”

  I reluctantly ripped my gaze away from her playing in the pool with her slutty ass friend, Erin. She’d been giving me the eye ever since the first time she stepped through the door. “The kid?” Saying her name would leave me exposed.

  “The kid you’d fuck six ways to Sunday as soon as her father’s back was turned.”

  “Jesus, pops. She’s sixteen! I’m. Not. A Fucking. Pedophile.”

  “I never said you were, but I also know firsthand how someone like her can be hard to resist. She’d make you throw away your morals and your goddamn soul for just a little taste and all she’d have to do is whisper, yes .”

  “Bullshit.”

  “So you don’t want her?” The knowing glow in his eyes didn’t need an answer. “You’re only twenty-two and still a kid yourself. I know what you’re thinking.”

  He watched me, dangling the bait. He was a lot more calculating and patient than I was. I sighed and gave in. “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re wondering just how far you could push the boundaries that keep you separated before your conscience gets the better of you.”

  “Wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “Because I’m wondering how many of her boundaries I could push before I destroy her.” He swore and shoved his hand through his hair when I gave him the answer he sought.

  I wanted her.

  My mind was made up, and I wasn’t changing it. Not for him, her father… or her.

  “You can’t have her, son.”

  “It’s too late to stop me.”

  “You are not going to pursue her, Angeles.” He used my full name to let me know he was serious.

  “Maybe not today.” I met his stare. “But she’s mine, pops.”

  He sighed. “At least allow her to grow up. She’s got years before she’ll be ready to be a lady of this life. Even then, Theo may kill you before he allows you to take her.”

  “When I take her,” I said, letting him know I would take her with or without Theo’s approval, “the first thing I’m exorcising from her mind is her father.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She’s too dependent on him.”

  “She’s sixteen,” he reminded me unnecessarily. I was well aware of her age. It was the only thing that has held me back.

  “I meant her emotional dependence on him. The only man she’ll need to take orders from is me.”

  My father left knowing he couldn’t persuade me onto some righteous path. I holed myself in my room until the sound of her laughter drew me out again. Erin left hours ago. She should have been alone.

  I was drawn to the guest room she had turned into her own since everything in that room belonged to her… right down to the racy boy shorts and tiny tops she liked to wear when her father wasn’t around.

  I didn’t bother to knock. I twisted the knob and pushed open the door. If the door had been locked, I would have broken the fucking thing down.

  She watched with wide eyes as I entered. After a brief glance her way, I searched the room. If I had taken in the sight of her half-naked in tiny shorts and tank in the middle of her ruffled lime green and black sheets, I would have lost it.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here.”

  “ Well, why are you barging in my room?”

  “It’s a guest room, which means it belongs to whatever person who temporarily inhabits the room. Spreading your shit around does not make it yours,” I lied.

  Pain appeared in her sensual brown eyes. “Get out.”

  “In a minute.” I ventured deeper i
nside as she pressed her thighs together and eyed me. She wasn’t even aware of the cues she gave off. She wanted me. Maybe even as much as I needed her. The thought had me wanting to climb right into that bed with her and do things that were illegal. “Who is in here with you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I heard you laughing.”

  “And that means someone is in here with me?”

  I’d had enough of her games. I stalked her, which made her scramble to get away from me. I was too quick for the Sprite. With one hand, I grabbed the front of her pathetic excuse for a shirt and lifted her in the air. I held her safely out of the way as I used my other arm to rip the mattress and box springs beneath it away.

  There was nothing underneath it but dust.

  “Have you lost your mind?” She struggled to free herself from my hold. She even growled, and I found it to be the cutest sound. I set her down on her feet and ignored her as she cursed. I searched her closet full of clothes and even knocked some from the hangers. “Satisfied?”

  “Why were you laughing?”

  She gestured to the TV she hadn’t had before I left and smirked. She’d been using the TV in the living room since she didn’t have a personal one. She must have convinced her father to install one while I was gone. I was still high off being angry, so I pushed my body into her smaller one. I wasn’t above intimidation to get the reaction I wanted.

  “Move,” she warned.

  “What will you do?”

  She cocked her head and snorted just before she brought her knee up. Lucky for me, I was quicker. I gripped her underneath the offending knee and wrapped her leg around my waist. Because we were standing in the middle of the fucking room, the only leverage I had to offer her was my hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You were going to knee me, Sprite. Not a very good idea.”

  “Then why did you teach me how to do it?” she challenged.

  “So you can fight off horny teenaged boys who can’t keep their hands to themselves.”

  As opposed to a grown man who damn well should keep his hands to himself?

  Her mouth twisted and her eyes debated. I tightened my grip on her leg but then decided to test the waters and let go. Holding my breath, I waited to see if she would make the sane choice for the both of us and lower her leg.

  She didn’t.

  I don’t even think she noticed my hand was gone. She was too busy staring at my lips. I leaned forward, drawn by a will that was not mine. The hitch in her breath brought me back to my fucking senses.

  She was just a child, and at this age, there was no chance in hell she was in control of her own body yet. Not enough to resist me if I pursued her.

  My other hand fell from her as if I’d been scalded, and I quickly stepped back. She looked startled. The arousal in her eyes rapidly dimming.

  “I need to get the fuck out of here.”

  I needed to talk to my father. There was no way I could keep this shit up and not take her. It wasn’t just about her age. I had been warned away from Mian Ross. I knew my father would never let me take my rightful place as The Bandit if I didn’t heed his warning.

  Nothing short of her whispering the words, “Fuck me,” would make me give in.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Enemies don’t flash each other their playbook.

  ANGEL

  Present

  Seducing Mian wasn’t as easy as I had assumed. Each day in her presence, I was finding less of the spoiled girl who had her daddy catering to her every whim, and more of the guarded woman she had become since I had last seen her.

  “How’d it go?”

  “She has a beautiful face when she comes. And the sound… None of that over the top, porn shit. It was… sweet.”

  I played it cool as if the thought of him touching what I had made mine didn’t make me want to murder them both. “Is she on board?”

  “Not yet but she will be.”

  “So you didn’t fuck her?”

  “Nope.” His nonchalance was getting on my last nerve. “She could be on to us.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve seen you two seduce happily married women, twice her age, out of their panties within a week.”

  “She’s young, but she’s not dumb,” Lucas corrected. He’d been silent for most of the meeting, but he took a deeper interest when the subject turned to Mian.

  “And we don’t get to fuck a married woman if she’s happy,” Z clarified. “We get to fuck married women who can’t admit they’re unhappy until we send them on their way and they come back for more.”

  “I don’t care how you do it. Just do it.”

  Lucas’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. “You saying we should rape her?”

  “Of course not. Use her, but do not hurt her.”

  “You two were childhood friends…”

  “You could say that…”

  “You don’t think you’re hurting her by giving her to us? Blind men could tell the only man she cares to spread her legs for is you.”

  I turned to Z who looked deep in thought. “How long did it take before you made her come?”

  “A few minutes… why?”

  It only took her a few minutes to yield to another man, yet they expected me to believe I was the key to cracking Mian?

  “Could you please tell Lucas that spreading her legs for any man but me won’t be a problem?”

  His bark of laughter as he sat back surprised me. “You’re fucked if you think that’s true.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She didn’t stop fighting me until I mentioned your secret kiss. Yeah, we know about that. I seduced her with thoughts of you coming into her room and finding her waiting so you could give her more of what you’re denying yourself. She couldn’t get enough of my hand between her thighs after that.”

  I stood and paced the room. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Z.”

  “No more than you.”

  “You were supposed to seduce her, not unearth her secrets.”

  “It’s the same thing. You don’t get close to a girl like Mian and not want to know more.”

  “So what? You have a crush on her?”

  “I’m too old for crushes. I like her. She’s innocent.”

  “She’s dangerous,” Lucas added.

  “She’s just a nineteen-year-old girl,” I groaned.

  “Then why are you still avoiding her?”

  “Because I’m still planning to kill her father. I think that would put a damper on our relationship.”

  “You sure it not’s because once you’ve had her, you won’t be able to kill her?”

  Sometimes I would forget that Z and Lucas weren’t henchman collecting a paycheck. They were my brothers, and they knew me better than anyone did. Including my father.

  “I’m not sticking my dick in someone whose father killed mine.”

  “And after he’s dead and the score is settled? Theo won’t be out for a long time. Too long for ‘what ifs.’”

  “I’m not waiting until he’s released.”

  They both sat up at the same time. “Come again?”

  “Yeah. What changed?”

  “If Theo is behind me getting robbed, then how much more does he know? If Mian isn’t involved, then he obviously has connections outside those prison bars. We cannot allow him to reach too far.”

  “He already has.”

  “Then we cut off his arm as payment.”

  “How exactly do we do that?” Z questioned.

  I pinned Lucas with my stare. He didn’t fidget like most men. He stared back, which is one of the reasons I trusted him. “You said you have a guy inside, right?”

  “Yeah. He’s looking to get out in a year with good behavior, and he needs money quick.”

  “Tell him to stay ready, but warn him
I don’t pay for sloppy work.”

  “On it.”

  “I want this message sent personally. No paper trails. No loose ends. Establish contact and pay him a visit.”

  “You want me to go back to Chicago for this ?”

  “Not just for this. There’s something I want you to steal.”

  * * *

  Lucas left the next day, and I was faced with a difficult decision. Mian wasn’t going to be moved by force, which only left gaining her trust. I pushed inside the nursery and found Caylen awake in his crib and kicking his feet contentedly. I stood over the crib and gazed down at the child whose happy personality had yet to waver despite everything I put his mother through.

  It’s been two weeks since I discovered she had a kid. I’d lie awake at night wondering about the man she gave her body to. I told myself his father didn’t matter, but then jealousy forced my hand. She lied about Caylen’s conception. Sometimes we forget how those years together made us know one another better than we knew ourselves. When the time was right, I’d finally uncover her secrets.

  I guess Z had been right.

  Mian made it impossible not to want to know more.

  I was pulled from my thoughts when I felt a light touch on my hand. The baby stood with his little fists grasping the edge in between my hands. When my gaze met his shiny blues, his gummy grin shone bright.

  “What are you up to?” He made a high-pitched squeal of excitement, and he bounced up and down in place. “Showing off?” His grip slid closer to mine until his fist touched my much bigger one. I flinched and lifted my hand to move it away but froze when his smile dropped.

  I told myself it was a trick of my own mind.

  My hand lowered anyway and closed over his fist. His smile returned brighter than before.

  I ignored the stabbing pain in my chest and took a deep breath. “All right, kid. Let’s go see your mother.”

  He did that squealing shit again when I lifted him from the crib. I held him to my chest while he stuck his fist in his mouth. My heart stopped beating for a moment as if to disguise itself when he laid his head against my chest.